The Last Days of Summer

Education on the Mind

Photo by Dakota Roos on Unsplash

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By

James Pew

As we enter the final days of the season of sunshine and warmth, I hope everyone had a great summer. Are we ready for cooler days? Are we ready to get a little more serious? Are we ready for school? And homework? For myself and some dedicated colleagues, our work of course, amongst other things, involves the raging culture wars battle this newsletter was founded to confront. Continuing to confront it, as we increase our knowledge and refine our methods, is exactly what we intend to do.

We are about to send our kids back to school. As parents and concerned citizens, we know there are some major problems with woke identity politics in K-12 education. I discussed this with Andrew Lawton of True North on his last show on July 31st. Andrew had me on because I had published a piece on Critical Theory in Canadian education with the C2C Journal the previous week. That piece is called Transforming Children: Critical Theory Takes Over Canadian Schools.

From the beginning Woke Watch Canada has covered wokeism in Canadian schools and the general decline in education standards. This summer, it was great to take somewhat of a break from publishing articles concerning things like woke teacher training resources like the Trans-Affirming Toolkit, which I described in a piece I wrote in May for the MacDonald Laurier Institute, called Canada’s Dangerous Commitment to Trans-Affirming Care for Minors. Instead, over the last few months I’ve turned my attention away from the problems of education, and toward what makes education great. Or, more accurately, what used to make education great (and what went wrong with it).

What I have discovered – and continue to discover – is that the practice of teaching and of education as a concept, does not share the same upward linear trajectory of constant gradual improvement, as does the important and adjacent concept of knowledge. Human knowledge has always been cumulative, it has only moved in one direction – continuous growth and  improvement in the understanding of the nature of the world. However, education, the way in which we pass knowledge to the masses on through the generations, has not been linked to the steady rise of knowledge. In fact, it seems as though different periods throughout history have sometimes favoured education systems which were actively hostile to processes of knowledge production, and of the vast deposit of human knowledge accumulated at any given time.

The woke era of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Radical Gender Theory, and Anti-Racism, is one such counter-productive moment in the history of education. The institutions of learning have become, as I described to Andrew Lawton, “far left indoctrination factories.” So, over the spring and summer, I researched the history of education in the West, which is closely linked to the history of knowledge production, and the history of ideas. I can’t imagine anything I write from here on, not being informed by what I have learned in exploring these strands.

I am anxious to start publishing some of this new stuff. There is much of it to come! However, this is traditionally the slowest time of the year for Woke Watch Canada, so I’m going to hold off until next week until I officially kick off the back-to-school season. On our return, what you can expect is not just the frustrating, but important, coverage of woke shenanigans in Canadian education, but a new series of essays concerning the history of Western education. This series will explore the origins of education in the West, but also the height of it. I will look at the history of education theories and approaches, and discuss in great detail the Western Canon and the Great Books Movement most vociferously championed by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler. Above all though, this series will offer hope for parents and concerned citizens who may be feeling that education in the West has become a lost cause. It hasn’t. And we can’t let it become so. This series is a much-needed counterbalance to the often depressing modern situation parents face today concerning the education of their children.

But the education of parents is something I have put much thought into as well. Or, education beyond the classroom; education as a lifelong pursuit. As parents, are we not better off if we pursue this? And, does it not have the extra benefit of modeling positive productive behaviour to our kids? – If we live, in this case, a life of the mind (the lifelong pursuit of knowledge and understanding)? I will say no more about it for now, but if this piques your interest, please keep your eyes on this newsletter for my new essay series on the history of education (I haven’t picked a series title yet, but you’ll know it when you see it).

Readers can also expect to see another half-dozen parts of anthropologist Geoffrey Clarfield’s essays series on his Non-Woke Personal Library. More great commentary on book authors from Peter Best. A theoretical essay on Canadian social conservatism from Mr. M. And more Canadian education analysis from educator Igor Stravinsky. And of course, from me, beyond my exciting new education essay series, I will also be covering woke shenanigans in the classroom – Chanel Pfahl has recently started posting to X a ton of frustrating examples of wokeism in Canadian classrooms, so there will be no shortage of material for me to comment on and bring to the attention of Woke Watch Canada readers.

Until then, enjoy the last few days of summer. I’ll see you on the other side – bring your reading glasses!

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read My Non-Woke Personal Library and Its Saving Virtues Part 1

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